


The Scent of Formaldehyde

by TheRedHero11037



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Fun Times in Hojo's Secret Illegal Lab: the story, Post Advent Children, Referenced Human Experimentation, The Turks doing Turk things, a lot of briefly mentioned dead things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-06-10 06:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRedHero11037/pseuds/TheRedHero11037
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When investigating anywhere that the late Doctor Hojo worked, you expect to find some fucked up shit here and there. When investigating one of the late Doctor Hojo’s secret illegal labs, you expect to find literally nothing but really fucked up shit. Now it's time for the Turks to prepare to do some years-overdue cleaning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh lord,” Reno was the only one who dare spoke into the darkness. “This is _fucked up.”_

The other Turks silently agreed, but it wasn’t like it was that much of a surprise. When investigating anywhere that the late Doctor Hojo worked, you expect to find some fucked up shit here and there. When investigating one of the late Doctor Hojo’s secret illegal labs, you expect to find _literally nothing but_ really fucked up shit. The fucked up shit that Reno was specifically referring to was the expertly cataloged hoard of specimens populating the room.

It was a library of dead things suspended in formaldehyde. Reno and Elena were currently scouring the shelves in a scavenger hunt to find the most disgusting thing in the room besides the half-rotten severed human arm in a formaldehyde fishtank on what seemed to be Hojo’s personal desk. Below the usual stats (male, 22 years, left arm, moderate decay), it was labeled “Vincent Valentine, the only fool who dared defy me.”

Reno whistled. “Hojo was a sick bastard, alright. Look at this, Tseng. And entire shelf for bits of SOLDIER Firsts. Gross.” He shone his flashlight over crowded shelves. “Hey, you knew Zack Fair, yeah? You wanna take home his--”

“I’m going to stop you right there and firmly suggest you drop any notion of us taking anything for ourselves lest a bullet make its home between your eyes.” Tseng did not look up from sorting through the papers on the desk.

“Yeesh. Touchy,” Reno grunted.

“Of course he is,” Elena whispered as she explored the opposing shelves. “Zack was his friend, remember?”

“You weren’t even there!”

“Would you two shut up and do your damn job?” Tseng growled.

Reno and Elena stared at each other momentarily, then Reno shushed her loudly. Elena and Tseng both decided to ignore that for the sake of their sanity.

The radios in their ears crackled to life, and Rude spoke. “Sir?”

“Mhm?” Tseng made no indication besides a finger to his ear.

“You’re gonna want to see this. I can barely believe I’m seeing it. Can anyone come down here and confirm?”

“On my way,” Tseng replied.

“Second door to the left. Yeesh, I feel like I’m in a horror movie. Please hurry."

Immediately upon entering the room, there was an overwhelming sense that someone was watching. Tseng barely had time to glance around for Rude before a chill passed down his spine. Something was wrong.

While the rest of the lab was creepy in a disgusting way, this room was creepy in a bizarre, out of place way. The room seemed to be converted from a storage room to a small child's bedroom. The floor was still concrete with a drainage grate in it, and the walls were still warehouse brick. The odd children's drawing was taped up on the wall or forgotten on the floor. A small bed was pushed against one of the walls. Its covers were hospital white and a plush rabbit was settled in the middle of it, face down and awkward, like it had been dropped in a hurry. Toys were scattered about the room, perched on tiny furniture or precariously stacked in the middle of the room.

The out of place nursery would have been enough on its own, but this was Hojo, a man who pushed all boundaries on depravity. There were patches of what both Tseng and Rude pretended not to know was dried blood all over the concrete floor and mako sludge sinking into some of the toys. A clear cabinet over a tall sink displayed syringes and scalpels. They could only hope it was an intimidation tactic, but the filled log sheets on the clipboard next to it suggested otherwise.

Taken as a whole, the implications of the room were clear as glass. Hojo had been experimenting on a young child and this was that poor child’s room.

Tseng suppressed his rising urge to vomit. It wasn’t good form to destroy evidence like this, at least not without orders. He stepped over a pile of Legos and approached the tall sink and the cabinet of syringes.

“Wait,” Rude put a hand on Tseng’s shoulder. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

Tseng turned around and followed Rude to one of the crude drawings taped up next to the bed. It was a pale-haired stick figure with bright green eyes holding what was probably supposed to be the abandoned toy rabbit. There was a messy caption below it.

“My name is Sephiroth,” Tseng read.


	2. Chapter 2

“My name is Sephiroth,” Tseng read.

“Fuck.” Rude pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was hoping I’d read that wrong.”

“We don’t know if it’s actually related to the real Sephiroth. You know how many books there were about him.” Tseng tried to calm himself with reason. It wasn’t working.

“This is Hojo we’re talking about. If we’re thinking about it realistically, there are two options. One, he brainwashed this kid into thinking he was Sephiroth, or…” Rude trailed off. The other option was the one Tseng was really worried about. He stepped back over to the clipboard on the wall. 

“If he really is Sephiroth, somehow, we can only hope he’s already been taken care of. I’m not looking forward to another fight with the greatest threat to the world in recorded history.” He picked up the clipboard and sent out an order for Elena to go through the files on Hojo’s computer. “You’re looking for Experiment Cl. J-1-026. I want anything you can get,” he demanded.

“Got it,” Elena’s voice crackled through the headset. “I already got the main password. Checking if there’s encryption software to go through.”

Tseng smiled to himself. “I knew I could count on you.”

As the silence of the room grew deafening, Tseng and Rude began to busy themselves gathering evidence. Rude took pictures to send off to Rufus. Tseng looked through the clipboard. There wasn’t much discernable on it. Even if Hojo’s atrocious scribbles had been legible, Tseng knew they’d be covered in scientific abbreviations and nicknames known only to Hojo himself. Every other log sheet Hojo had ever filled was the same way. Tseng held the paper closer and squinted at it. He’d have to make a guess on some of the dates, but it seemed like the last entry had been only about a couple weeks before the man’s demise.

That entry was legible enough, luckily. There wasn’t much to squeeze into the narrow box. Hojo’s tight script read a single word: preservation. Tseng let out a breath he didn’t realize that he was holding. “Preservation” was probably in formaldehyde. The experiment was probably killed.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Elena suddenly patched in. “Cl. J-1-026 is a direct, successful clone of Sephiroth--”

“I guessed that already.” Tseng didn’t mean to be so curt, but this wasn’t some trivial trial run.

“Geez, let me finish,” Elena sassed back. Tseng could imagine the pout on her face from only the tone of her voice. She continued. “When I said you’re not gonna believe this, I meant that this thing is still alive. It’s being preserved in Storage B5. I have the vitals right here.”

Tseng swore more loudly than he meant to and threw the clipboard down on the floor. “Is Reno still fucking around in there?”

Reno answered this time. “Not much else to do.”

“You need to get Cloud Strife on the phone with me right now.”

“You always stick me with the hard jobs,” Reno laughed. “I’ll send the call over to you if he answers.”

“Good. Elena, stay where you are. We’re gonna need someone with information at the ready.”  
“No problem,” she replied.

“Rude,” Tseng looked across the room to the man standing at the ready. “You and I are going down to Storage B5.”


	3. Chapter 3

The road down to Storage B5 was cold and speckled with dried liquids of every kind. Hojo obviously hadn’t cared to clean up at any point during his stay here. Tseng just kept staring ahead, marching forward. They had to put Cl. J-1-026 down. They couldn’t let Sephiroth get out again. Suddenly, there was someone yelling into Tseng’s ear.

“Do you not understand the meaning of ‘don’t contact me ever again’?! This is at least the third time one of you has called me, and this time Reno says it’s on ‘business’?! I don’t work for you! I haven’t since I was sixteen!”

“It’s nice to speak to you again too, Cloud,” Tseng replied politely. “I hate to bother you, but we may need your abilities very soon.”

“Fuck off,” snapped Cloud. “I’m finally happy. You’re not going to drag me into whatever wetwork you have planned. I’m not a mercenary anymore. Find someone else.”

“There isn’t anyone else. You’re the one strong enough to kill Sephiroth--”

“Don’t you fucking say his name,” Cloud snarled. “He and everything involved with him are behind me.”

“That’s not a choice you get to make, Cloud,” Tseng retorted. “For the sake of everyone--”

“Fight your own battles.”

The line went dead. Tseng swore again. “This mission is awful.”

“I’m not surprised he didn’t want to talk to you,” Rude murmured. “It’s not like he has good memories with any of us. Half the time we were trying to kill him, and the other half he was dying.”

“That shouldn’t matter, Rude.” Tseng crossed his arms.

“Not to us, no. We’re the Turks. We do the dirty work, and we’re not afraid of death.” Rude adjusted his sunglasses. “But Cloud’s just some mercenary.”

“He’s so much more than just a mercenary, Rude. Cloud Strife is the only SOLDIER First who hasn’t died.”

“That’s mostly because he’s not actually a SOLDIER First,” Rude pointed out.

Tseng felt his eye twitch with rising anger. “He has the skills of one. What’s your point, anyway?”

“My point is that Cloud’s finally learned to fear death. Now he knows what he likes about living, and he won’t give it up.”

Tseng bit back a snarl. He hated it when Rude was this right. “Let’s just find this thing and end it.”


End file.
